I thought I'd post this since I have been seeing more posts about spiced beers etc for the fall/winter months.
When kegging a spiced beer, keep in mind that certain spices and herbs will "stain" you beer lines and can be almost impossible to rid the lines of there permeated flavor.
Two of the worst offenders are Cloves and Peppermint. Others as well but those have been my experiences. Not sure about Vanilla.
Months after certain flavored beers were kicked. I was still getting clove or peppermint, especially if the beer had been sitting in the lines for any amount of time. Not so noticeable with a stout, but a pils or wheat beer.... really obvious.
Besides changing beer lines, here is one possible taste removal method.
Take a keg, add Bar Keepers Friend and HOT water. (1/4 to 1/2 full should do)
Run through your lines. Let it soak for a couple of hours or even over night.
Run the rest of the solution through your line.
Now rinse the keg and fill with hot water (1/4 to 1/2 full) and baking soda. Run though your line. Then run plain cold water through your line and take a taste of the water. Flavorless? If so then let some water sit in the line for a while then pull another glass. If it still remains flavor free the you are good to go.
What we have done here is essentially and acid rinse flowed by a low level alkaline rinse and a mostly neutral water rinse.
Star san might work instead of BKF, but BKF worked for me.
A local beverage supply place her does basically the same method when they professionally clean beer lines. Except they use a chlorinated cleaner instead of BKF.
When kegging a spiced beer, keep in mind that certain spices and herbs will "stain" you beer lines and can be almost impossible to rid the lines of there permeated flavor.
Two of the worst offenders are Cloves and Peppermint. Others as well but those have been my experiences. Not sure about Vanilla.
Months after certain flavored beers were kicked. I was still getting clove or peppermint, especially if the beer had been sitting in the lines for any amount of time. Not so noticeable with a stout, but a pils or wheat beer.... really obvious.
Besides changing beer lines, here is one possible taste removal method.
Take a keg, add Bar Keepers Friend and HOT water. (1/4 to 1/2 full should do)
Run through your lines. Let it soak for a couple of hours or even over night.
Run the rest of the solution through your line.
Now rinse the keg and fill with hot water (1/4 to 1/2 full) and baking soda. Run though your line. Then run plain cold water through your line and take a taste of the water. Flavorless? If so then let some water sit in the line for a while then pull another glass. If it still remains flavor free the you are good to go.
What we have done here is essentially and acid rinse flowed by a low level alkaline rinse and a mostly neutral water rinse.
Star san might work instead of BKF, but BKF worked for me.
A local beverage supply place her does basically the same method when they professionally clean beer lines. Except they use a chlorinated cleaner instead of BKF.
